Once again my original intent was simply to start a discussion. We always hear the term "Top 40 Program". It has been going on for a long time.
I didn't spend any time researching this and added this along with the list.
quote:No one ever seems to say who the “top 40” programs are, yet that label is thrown around all the time.
Anyway, it got me to thinking. I know that is dangerous, but thought I’d come up with a non official top 40 list. Surely there will be some debate, but here is what I came up with. This is not based on 2008 alone.
What changes should be made to this list if we had to stick to only 40 programs?
The one thing that might have influenced my thinking is... We have all players that attend our events fill out info sheets. One of the questions is what colleges are you most interested in.
Often the answer is not a college but a conference, SEC, Pac10, ACC, Big 12. These conferences seem to be by far the most popular with talented high school players. We also see lots of big state colleges listed. Just to be totally honest, we do not see certain schools hardly ever mentioned. Yes, some of those schools never mentioned are what we could call top 20/40 teams.
I believe the mysterious "top 40" which is not a ranking, but it's something perceived. It's not neccessarily based on this year, last year, or anything like that.
Though Kentucky probably shouldn't have been on a top 40 program list, I think I was swayed by the big state famous college that has had a couple of great recruiting classes lately.
Maybe rather than always mentioning this ficticious "top 40 program" everyone talks about, we should list the top conferences. That would be a little less controversial. Maybe not!
BTW, St Johns probably belongs too. In fact maybe when people talk about a "top 40 program" there should be 60-70 colleges on that list.